ODE TO AUTUMN : John Keats |
CONTEXT, INTERPRETATIONS AND MEANING: |
1.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. 2. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. 3. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-- While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. |
1.
Keats immediately starts with personification suggesting that autumn and the sun are old friends, who are talking to one another about how to make the fruit grow and curve around the roofs of cottages and mix in with apples and ripen the fruits to a delicious taste. The visual image is made to make the fruits sound mouthwatering. The bees think that flowers will always be there as summer will never end to them and they will continue to gather sweet nectar. 2. The rhetorical question is asked who hasn't seen autumn from the store? Keats is now telling us where we can find autumn if we were to look for it. Autumn is personified to be a woman with "soft hair", if you cannot find her in the granary she can be found asleep on top of a hill drunk on the smell of poppies, which she was meant to cut but they have in fact been saved as she fell "asleep". Gleaner - image of weight being used. But if we still haven't found autumn she can be found watching the "cyder-press" watching the fruit being "oozed", which concentrates on the sweetness of the season. 3. Rhetorical questions being used to ask where the songs of spring are? But reassures autumn by suggesting that spring songs do not matter in comparison to the songs of autumn. The song of autumn is metaphorically described as "clouds bloom" like flowers and the sunset is described a "soft-dying", which suggests is gentle and peaceful as the small flies buzz around in accordance to the light.- movement and direction Then the sounds of more animals and insets are emphasisd addressing to the sense of sound. How do each of the writers engage with the idea of the power of the imagination and nature? Keats engages with the idea of the power of the imagination and nature by personifying autumn and using sensory description of the animals and insects to bring alive the season of autumn. The attributes of autumn are personified, such as the idea of autumn being a woman suggesting that you can find her, bring out the power of imagination of Keats. |
Definition:
> eves - Roofs > kernel - Seeds > budding - future > granary - large amounts of harvested grains are kept cool and dry > winnowing - separating the grains from the non edible bits > Furrow - long, undulating hills that you see in fields, on top of which crops grow > gleaner - gatherers > gnats - small flies |